No, this is not a post about politics or life-hacking, although the same title could apply in either case. I am talking about statistical power. People often ask me what the power of a test is, but the problem is that they are asking the wrong question. Power is not a single number. I understand…
In the past, when I had to do any type of parsing of text, I wrote my own code with a zillion SUBSTR functions and IF statements and it did the job but it was *so-o-o ugly and painful that I never even considered including text mining in any courses I taught. I looked into…
After over a quarter of a century of experience working as a statistical consultant in a wide array of settings, it’s safe to say that a large proportion of the statistics presentations cover topics I have been over before. Still, even if it is a technique I’ve used many times, I almost always come across…
The taiko drumming on trash cans at the opening ceremony was kind of cool, but being a true geek I have to say the cool thing of the day goes to Visual Analytics. By the way, ten brownie points and kudos to whoever had the bright idea of having the SAS demo room open on…
SAS Global Forum has the usual required conference amenities. There is a nice hotel. There is swag. See photo below received by knowing trivia answers. Hint: A good place to find the trivia answers in advance is the SAS users blog. It is also good to know the name of the SAS Global Forum chair…
There must be some hallucinogenic drug given off by spring flowers, because it is the one time in the year when I am struck by the irrational thought, “Maybe I should clean my office.” Like any other spring cleaning undertaking, random things are uncovered that make me think, “Huh. I wonder what that was for.”…
I am an unashamed statistical programming geek. I’m leaving very soon, stopping to visit my mom on the way to SAS Global Forum because 94.7% of all mothers have retired to Florida by age 68. (That is a real statistic. As someone commented about fake boobs – if they exist, they’re real.) I admit it,…
Heidi Cohen gives a lot of good advice on getting your blog noticed, very little of which I follow. For one thing, she does not begin by suggesting you have someone bring you a glass of cognac, which is how this particular post started, proving that she may know more about blogging but I’m a…
Last year, one of my very young doctoral students (who was single), commented in class that she was sure women with more education were less likely to get married. Two older women in the class agreed that was probably true because women with more education were less likely to settle for just any man who…
A few years ago, taking testimony in a court case, an attorney asked me, “Tell me, doctor, have you heard the saying, ‘Lies, damned lies and statistics’? Isn’t it true what they say, that you can lie with statistics?” I answered, “Not to me, you can’t.” My point that day was that if the person…